Hmmm…

Troubled waters…

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090820/ap_on_sc/us_sci_warm_oceans

Doesn’t seem too promising.

G.

The Cool 2007 Lupe Fiasco @ EMU & Collective Memory

The way our collective attention spans work these days, the rappers who remain the most relevant in public perception are either on EVERY new single out (Wayne, Kanye), getting in trouble with the law (Wayne, Kanye, T.I.), or just by being outtapocket with petty beefs (Rick Ross, 50 Cent). Now, none of these things necessesarily bother me very much at all, I just write this to make an observation about how quickly both rappers and songs become outdated and irrelevant in our collective consciousness. It’s crazy interesting to me particularly when I begin to take this same concept and apply it to real hard pressing issues affecting our communities both local and global.

The same way we dismiss rappers who haven’t leaked a new song every couple weeks is the same way so many of us in the U.S. relate to the current socio-economic and political issues we face as a people. For example, the tragedy of prolonged violence in the Middle-East is overshadowed by controversial torture procedures enforced during the Bush administration. Of course torture should be looked at closely, it’s inhumane, unspeakably fucked up and shouldn’t happen, but the amount of time the media chooses to focus on it while not telling us much of anything new about it is simply a waste of time. There’s ALL KINDS of death and fucked up shit going on right now in the Bay Area and it seems like the shit that our communities go through are just forgotten and pushed aside for the new subject du jour (of the day). The role of mass media as a central tool for propaganda and distraction can NEVER be underemphasized.

Interestingly enough, this video of Lupe Fiasco performing his song, “The Coolest,” off of his album The Cool, brought all of this to mind. Specifically because back when this album first came out Lupe was my favorite rapper by FAR and in my head nobody could top his talent at songwriting, wordplay, etc etc. But if someone had asked me who my favorite rapper in the game was yesterday he wouldn’t even have crossed my mind initially. Knowing me, I probly woulda said Young Dro or someone. But then I went back and looked at this video and was just floored again at this fool. He’s just ridiculous. I mean how long ago was 2007 really? But I’m SURE if i put together a mix to throw on at a party and it had something from Lupe’s 2007 album on it muhfuckas would definitely be giving me the stink face. It makes me check myself and my own susceptibility to being swept up into the waves of the “current” and losing touch on things that I loved (or things that affected me) but I just hadn’t thought of in a while.

(Sometimes I ramble, sorry).

Anywho, here goes the video that sparked this tangent:

Peace.

G-Mitch

PS – Shout out to DSB for checkin me and makin me do a new blog. Your turn now bruh bruh!

The Berenstain Bears and Too Much TV + HAPPY 3rd BDAY KAYLIN!

The Family Portrait

Back in my younger years I used to pick three books for my mama to read to me before I went to sleep every night. She would always start trailing off during the last story of the night and start mumbling funnies that only come out of your mouth when you’re trying to read out loud as you fall asleep. Those are fond memories. She would always ask me what certain words meant and she would tell me to figure the word out within the context of the sentence. This has to be the reason why I love reading and enjoy writing so much to this day.

My mama DID have a limit though. I was HELLA into The Berenstain Bears growing up and I tried to collect all of the ones they would put on the back cover of each book (because it said “Collect Them All!” and I was good at following certain directions). At a certain point in the night for any mama tryin to go to bed, 3 Berenstain Bears books just begins to be too much reading, so she told me I could still pick out 3 books, but only two of them could be the Berenstain Bears.

I bring these memories up for a few reasons:

1 is that I just got back from 5 days split between Maui & Oahu. While we were out there I spent almost every second I could outside doing something cool.

The Fam Eatin' in Maui

We went snorkling, bike riding, went to hella beaches and tried to boogy board (which is lightweight hard when there ain’t some big waves), AND probly the most exciting thing EVER: I saw friggin Humpback whales breaching BLUD!!! (and i didn’t take my camera along for none of those things cuz I knew I would break it so…here’s a youtube clip.

Basically I watched little to no TV, and damn near more important in MY case was that I didnt spend ANY time on the internet. It felt so fuckin good. I forgot that feeling damn near of just being not dependent on any screens (whether it be TV, computer, phone, whatever). It reminded me of the year in college where we decided that we weren’t going to have cable or internet in our spot and it wound up being one of the most active / learning / crazy filled years of my life (on hella levels).

My mama recently did some cleaning out of my gramma’s basement and brought a box back to here house of hella my old books and records and randomly accumulated miscellaneous shit, and in the box was, The Berenstain Bears and Too Much TV.

I just re-read that shit and it made me feel hella good, and it just kinda reminded me that just because I’m back home from a vacation doesn’t mean I should go back to my routine of watching the same shows at the same times i tend to. It reminded me (along with the trip to Hawaii) that I gotta do things daily to turn my hometown(s) into my own concrete paradise. It doesn’t hurt that the spring is creeping in (the pollen in my nose reminds me of this annually) and the whether is (trying) to change and get rid of this rain and cold weather. And then daylight savings always gets people back outta their shelter and moving around a lot more again.

So I got a few good books right now (some of which i meant to read/finish a while ago)  to keep me away from the screens in my life:

• A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle (It’s in Oprah’s Book Club, holla!)
• Confessions of a Yakuza by Junichi Saga (Word to C. Darby for that plug)
• Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (Yup, book before the movie type read)
• The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition by Michael H. Shuman (Word to K-Chedda Mo’ Betta for that one)
• Grant Writing for Dummies by Dr. Beverly A. Browning
• The Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (I read half of it like 3 months ago and just set it down). And last but MOST important(ly)…….
• The Land Before Time: The Search for the Great Valley by Little Foot

So between all of these books, trying to finish two albums (The Mitchell Report, with Senbei of the mighty mighty Broken Halos & Colinrespose, and BASS aka Bay Area Super Slap (word C+) for OPTIC), working on trying to find work and working that work, being a part of a Dominoes League, and kickin it with the fam (all my families), it should hopefully be tough to fit in any time for these screens…except for Warriors games!!! Come on man, that’s the reason I got cable in the first place!

Holler Atcha Fam Bam,

G.Mitch

PS- If you got any ideas for fun activities that don’t include screens lemme know!

PPS-HAPPY 3rd BDAY to my niece Kaylin…(Dang, she’s three ALREADY!?!?)

My 2 Favorite Womyn (The one who read me Berenstain Bears & the one who gets read Berenstain Bears Now.

Oh Shit!! Lup E.N.D.

Back up in this muhfucka like whoa! Got my car stolen, lost my phone, cable wasn’t working, but after two long months wit no internet in my new spot I finally hit up comcast and am currently online officially now…legally. To be honest, it’s been so long since i been on wordpress.com, the website went and changed on me and now i’m all confused and gotta relearn how to put pictures on and everything. But hey, since it’s only Colin, D. Scott, and maybe still Korillation that check up on this blog, i’m sure ya’ll love me enough to keep on reading despite the lack of media and flashy things that make blogs so cool in the first place. HA.

Now…With the monumental, life altering, brain bursting, organ churning, world on the edge of it’s collective seats election just hours away…what better time to be back up in here postin like this, am i right? HELL YEAH. That was a rhetorical question. 

But I am posting NOT about the day that may or may not change my outlook on life forever (too dramatic?), but about something that i just saw on HipHopDX that just made me incredibly giddy. I am just waaay too much of a hip hop nerd i think, but i like that kind of nerdiness though, but it was a video featuring one of my favorite rappers in the “game”: Lupe Fiasco. I would just come out and tell you what the video is about, but it’s just so much more exciting letting him tell it for himself. So here goes the link, I hope the video works. HOLLER!!!

http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/videos/id.1786/title.lupe-fiasco-lupend-details

Feels So Good To Be BAAAAAAAACK!

BARACK THE VOTE U BEEZIES!!!!!!!!!!!

G-Slavename.

…

“First Black Presidential Nominee”

(those are some weird/surreal ass words to read, and they’re all over the internet)

In a country built under the guise of freedom while simultaneously enslaving Africans and committing genocide against Native Americans. In a country where the current president’s overt racism and ignorance led him to perceive Hurricane Katrina as not worth his attention. In Amerika, where Dubya and his oligarchy are so consumed and blinded by tenacious greed and power that they have sent the countries poor and working class to fight, kill, and die in erroneous, illegal, unjustified wars, killed thousands of people over seas, worked harder than ever at destroying the global environment, and driven the economy into a recession.

In a country where the majority of the wealthy came to be that way through owning slaves. In a country that is still only leasing black people the right to vote. In a country that brutally criminalizes, strategically policies and without hesitation marches all who are deviant from the norm of whiteness into concentration camps, secret and not so secret prisons.

I could go on: Jim Crow, the Militarization of the border (guess which one), the counter revolutions to the revolutionary action of the 1960s, the Education Industrial Complex, etc. etc. etc.

In a country this fucked up and racist, Barack Obama has just won the presidential nomination of one of the major political parties and has earned the right to possibly be voted into office as the first black president in the history of this fucked up, oppressive, racist, genocidal, colonizing Amerika that we call home.

Congratulations.

It’s wild to see how a wealthy, white, Christian, homophobic administration fucked up soooooo bad with this country that even white people were like, “Fuck this shit!” and down to vote and nominate this black man potentially into office.

This is an historic moment in my life. I actually am so distracted with finals and papers right now that i haven’t really left this computer for a couple days, so i’m kinda not paying attention to anything. But this shit is nuts, and I am not really grasping the magnitude and the impact of this shit right now, but DAMN man…I don’t really have more words right now. I’ll just put up a picture and holler at ya’ll later.

A black man with a white mama. Makes sense. We do got mad privilege. Damn this shit is wild.

wow.

G*Mitch aka Slavename

Happy Belated Brother Shabazz

I was playing tetris when i should have been studying and was listening to these in the background. These gotta be sampled and put into an album, hopefully mine, ASAP. Wow how bout the one way back when talking about black people living in a police state and how police are allowed to kill black people…hmmm. way back when is way right now too.

They’ve had their professional liars for so damn long! A whole history of Bill O’Reilly’s!

The criminalization of the black person:

Who Are You? Slavename?

Worldwide Revolution Going On:

Brotha Malcolm got mad funnies man.

Sometimes I forget to think about how got-damn important he was and still is. I never really forget, but then listening to all these clips just reminds me why his life has affected mine so much. These clips are so relevant 45, 50 years later. wow. that’s a long ass time, but then again it’s short in terms of his/her/ourstory. Thanks to whoever put these on youtube.

Slavename.

While i was procrastinating i found…

Ya’ll heard/saw the footage of Bill o’reily flippin out on inside edition back in the day right. If not, here.

Someone flipped his flipping out and made this shit and i was hella laughin at it. haha. i’ve watched this shit like 10 times already.

shit is funny, aw man.

peace.

End These Wars!

“The Amerikan way of life is simply not sustainable, because it doesn’t acknowledge that there is a world beyond Amerika.” ~Arundhati Roy

The wars that Amerika has been engaged in have lasted so long that they no longer even make the front pages of newspapers. Media uses these wars and occupations as political rhetoric and analyze (as if they were qualified) and discuss where presidential hopefuls should align themselves in order to obtain popular votes and argue about how they can get the muhfuckin’ “super”delegates on their side. Simultaneously thousands of troops have died, tens of thousands more have suffered injury, thousands of Iraqi civilians have died and been injured, families on both sides destroyed, and our militaries mere presence in Iraq and Afghanistan provide Al-Qaeda and other insurgent groups with ever-increasing recruitment numbers. Young Iraqis have grown up and are growing up in an occupied country and live under martial law. They have suffered through bombings, firing squads, air strikes, missile launchings, and a whole lot of other terrible shit that I don’t know enough to speak on.

What War Brings

They grow up on that while our youth grow up playing the video game versions of these wars as if they are not framed within the context of some of the most unjust and unfounded wars in history, and we all are becoming increasingly desensitized to death and dying and killing as we are fed numbers and statistics and lies.

I stayed up until 2 watching C-Span last night because there was a panel of 5 veterans of the war in Iraq reading their testimonials as to why they now actively oppose the war and work to end it and bring the rest of the troops back home. They were all part of the organization Iraq Veterans Against the War. The panel was put together by the Congressional Progressive Caucus to hear the experience of members of Iraq Veterans Against the War. Congresswomyn Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey are the co-chairs of the caucus which aims to “give voice to the needs and aspirations of all Americans and to build a more just and humane society.” Watching this panel I could just see how fucked up one of the speakers was with post traumatic stress syndrome, you could see him flashing back while he was reading about what the military was doing when he was in Iraq. It was powerful to see 5 marines who served tours of duty speaking on why they have since become some of the biggest anti-war activists.

At this point the war in Iraq, which so many of us knew was an unjust war to begin with- solely based upon power and control of the worlds oil supply- is nothing more than a farce and disgrace to the global community. Thousands have been killed and Amerikan media has been ordered not to show the people what this war actually looks like: These pictures are INCREDIBLY HORRIFIC, some of the worst I’ve ever seen, but this is what “our” country is doing right now.

End all Amerikan invasions and occupations now!

Peace,

G-Mitch

Police State Status.

Gescard Isnora, Marc Cooper, and Michael Oliver at a press conference last week, some time after hearing their “not guilty” verdict.

So it’s been about a week since the not-guilty verdict came down from the judge in the case of Sean Bell’s murder.

3 police go free for killing an African- American male and seriously wounding two others. Wednesday hundreds of people in New York blocked rush-hour traffic in protest of the police aquittals. There were at least 216 arrests.

Even Al got arrested.

Meanwhile, here is footage of what’s happening in Philly right now. (No wonder these Philly rappers are so heated right now). I’m sure this ain’t the only reason of course. Fuck.

These men have already been characterized as “murderers” by the Philadelphia police Commissioner. So they are made to be guilty already. No proof. Stereotypes, racism, criminalizing the victim(s), this is always how it happens. Police departments and the media have been doing this for centuries now. It’s a science. Making the victim the perpetrator and the perpetrator the victim and you have a spun story…

Not to mention the wrongful police killings of Gary King Jr. and Anita Gay by Oakland and Berkeley Police officers in the past 8 months. Nor does it include the beating of Michael Fykes by Cleveland police. No matter where you look it’s happening. Police beating, detaining, killing, unjustifiably justified. Sometimes they have video which makes people appalled so they gasp and say that shouldn’t happen, but it does. And it never stops really. Whether it’s 1 shot or 51 shots. Whether it’s 1 cop or 14 beating three people.

We also currently have over 2 million people incarcerated in the US right now, that figure does not include those under house arrest, on papers, etc. ICE is going crazy arresting, detaining, and deporting (peep the post right before this one). Amerika is a POLICE STATE, don’t get it twisted.

Fed the fuck up.

Signing out From the land of the free to be killed by the Police State and State Institutions,

Slavename.

ICE ICE BABY.

I got a text message last night warning about how there have recently (like the past couple days at least) been Migra sweeps at public schools around the East Bay! “ICE sweeps, public schools, Berkeley High, East Oakland, West Oakland…” The message continued, but i just peeped the Oakland “conservative” Tribune today and there was an article in there today about a few homes in Berkeley and Oakland where ICE came and snatched up families so WATCH OUT for federal agents, cuz they are on a mission right now! So not just schools but errywhere!

This is damn damn troubling, i can only imagine the fear and confusion of the people trying to avoid these raids. ICE (Immigration Customs Enforcement formerly known as Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)) is an incredibly destructive and problematic agency of the government. They perform raids all over the country tearing apart thousands of families and deporting and detaining (with an without charges) working people. Here’s just one example in Dallas. This problem is waaay too frequent and waaaay too silent in non-immigrant households and needs to be PUT ON BLAST as loud as possible.

Here’s a mini but potent article you NEED to know about:

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/05/06/18497395.php

Sfgate reporting:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/07/BA8B10HRUS.DTL&feed=rss.news

Know Your Rights! Go to immigrantrights.org:

http://immigrantrights.org/knowrights.asp#toolkit

Peace Duckin’ the Feds,

Slavename.